To Paint or Not to Paint?

Our kitchen cupboards are looking pretty shabby. They are cheap cabinets to begin with, and the are old. The do need a good scrubbing, but even after a cleaning they look dingy. The previous owners tried to make them presentable before selling the house by painting them. Trouble is they didn't remove the doors or the cabinet hardware for that matter, so under the handles and around the edges didn't get the fresh coat of paint.

The cabinets are painted white. While I like the clean look of white in the kitchen, it really is not practical for a family with fours small children. When we lived in Akron we had older, but quality wood cabinets. We sanded them down and put a couple coats of polyurethane on them, and though they were not fancy, the wood was beautiful. It rarely showed the fingerprints, and when it did they were easily washed away.

So the dilemma, do we take the time to paint these cupboards or not? Re-doing cupboards is a very time intensive project. If we do paint them what color? White seems so impractical, but the wood is not nice enough to refinish. Well I'll just add cupboards to the bottom of the "to do" list. By the time we get to them we may not have little kids anymore!